BETWEEN THREE FIRES
At sight of her, Captain Nadson fell back and stared.
“Prince Berloff!” he ejaculated.
But Berloff, surprised at her appearance, did not heed him. “Why,
Olga,” he said, “I thought you were indisposed, and lying down.”
Sonya, cool, haughty, ignored the captain as a thing below her notice.
“So I was,” she replied; “but I felt a little better and a few minutes
ago I wandered in there to look at your genealogical library. Here’s a
volume that I find has some new things about the Valenkos in the time
of Ivan the Terrible.”
“Don’t you think it would be well for you to eat something?” inquired
the prince.
“Perhaps I shall,” she said languidly.
“Boris will get you anything you wish. You will excuse us. Come,
captain.”
He started toward the door. Sonya was putting out her hand, but it was
Nadson who stopped him.
“A moment, prince. I want to speak to the lady.”
The captain’s bearded face was a-quiver with excitement. Sonya turned
her eyes upon him now for the first time--a cool, inquiring look, half
amazed at his temerity in daring to address her. Behind the door, all
Drexel’s being stood at pause.
“What does the gentleman wish to say?” Sonya asked stiffly.
Triumph glittered in the officer’s eye. “I believe I have seen madame
before,” he said.
“Very likely. Many persons have.”
“And recently. Only a week ago.”
“Ah!--then monsieur has just come from abroad.”
“I saw you in St. Petersburg.”
“Indeed! This is very remarkable.”
“Why?”
“Because only three days ago I returned from abroad after an absence of
five months.”
This effrontery was too much for the police official. “It’s not true!”
he blurted out.
Her face darkened. “What!” she cried.
“Captain--you forget yourself!” cut in the sharp voice of Berloff.
“I do not understand the insolence of this underling of yours, prince,”
she said majestically. “I do not care what he thinks or believes. I
have nothing more to say to him. If you desire to set him right, you
may.”
“Captain,” said the prince severely, “I myself met her when she
arrived.”
“You!”
[Illustration: _Triumph glittered in the officer’s eye. “I believe I
have seen madame before,” he said_]
“And from August until three days ago the princess----”
“The princess!” ejaculated the captain.
“Yes. My cousin--the Princess Valenko.”
“The daughter of the military governor?”
“The same,” said the prince.
The stupid amazement on the face of the big officer was a sight to see.
This was quickly followed by the sense of the danger to him of his
heinous blunder.
“I believe the captain said he had something to say to me,” Sonya
remarked with an awful hauteur that completed the man’s discomfiture.
“What is it?”
“Nothing--a mistake--I beg pardon,” stammered the captain.
“You are sure you have nothing to say?”
“Nothing, princess--nothing--I assure you. I ask a thousand pardons.
Nothing.”
“In that case,” said Berloff, “we shall go on into the study. Come on,
captain.”
They started again toward the door. Drexel crouched with tense muscles,
determined to make the best struggle that was in him.
But Sonya quietly slipped her hand through Berloff’s arm. “Won’t you
take me in to the dining-room? It will be very stupid eating in that
great room alone.”
“With pleasure,” said the prince. “Captain, please wait for me here.”
“Certainly, certainly!” said the officer.
“Then come, Olga.”
The captain, with one hand on the back of the leather chair in which he
was going to be comfortable for the next half-hour, bowed low to them.
“I trust the captain will not take his mistake too much to heart,” said
Sonya, her manner relenting somewhat. “Perhaps he, too, would like
something to eat after his drive from the station?”
“No, no--don’t think of me, princess,” protested the humbled officer.
“I am not hungry--not in the least.”
Sonya unbent a little more. “Then a glass of tea?”
“No--really--thank you----”
Sonya unbent still more--was the least bit gracious. “Come--let me give
you a glass of tea just to show that I bear no ill will.”
The captain flushed, gratified. “Well, just a glass of tea.”
“Come, then”--and Sonya led the two men out.
Drexel waited a minute, then slipped into the library. Already he had
made one decision. If he remained in the house, Captain Nadson would
be sure to see him. The captain might think himself mistaken regarding
Sonya’s identity, if nothing new came to reawaken suspicion; but to
see the exact likeness of both his fugitives in the house--the finest
bluffing in the world would not avail to save them.
He must fly the house, and fly the house at once.
But to leave that instant meant to abandon what would likely be the
only chance to learn the whereabouts of Borodin--to abandon his
precious, newly made, uncemented friendship with Sonya. So he made a
second decision. Sonya would keep the prince and Captain Nadson beside
her for several minutes. It was a great risk, but he would go on with
the search.
He hurried back to the files, first closing the shutters and turning on
the light, and went with feverish rapidity through the documents, his
ears strained for the faintest approaching step. Paper after paper he
skimmed. His heart pounded as if it would burst open his breast.
Suddenly he gave a start. He heard a light footfall, a soft
swish-swish--Sonya slipping back, he guessed. But when he peeped into
the other room it was the countess he saw. She took down a book and
settled herself in a chair; evidently she had come in here for a few
minutes’ relief from the crowd.
Drexel hesitated a moment--then went back to his work, and again
the records of arrests, of exile, of nefarious plots, flew beneath
his nervous hands, his eyes looking only for the name of Borodin.
Noiselessly files came out, their pages were turned, then slipped back,
while his strained fear counted the seconds.
“Ah, Mr. Drexel!” said a low voice behind him.
He whirled about. “Countess Baronova!” he breathed.
She lightly crossed to him. “You are trying to find out about Borodin?”
she whispered.
“Yes.”
“Then you were in earnest in what you said this morning--about being
with us?”
“Yes.”
“I am proud--proud! To have won you to us--and so quickly!” she said
softly, glowing upon him. And this marvellously clever actress told in
her manner that the great infatuation for her which had led him to this
action was returned.
He did not disillusion her; to have done so would have taken time and
would have exposed Sonya. “I must hurry,” he said, turning to his work.
“I may be interrupted any second.”
“And I will help you!” The next moment she, too, was fluttering through
the records--and again she felt that peculiar tang of excitement, an
excitement not quite like any she had experienced before in all her
professional career.
She wondered if he had discovered what office the prince held. “Is
there anything,” she asked, “that makes you think Prince Berloff
especially may possess the evidence we seek?”
He remembered Sonya’s statement that their knowledge of Berloff’s
position was a close secret.
“He seems intimate with the Government, as I told you,” he replied.
Several minutes passed. The two worked swiftly, in silence. Finally
Drexel straightened up with a low cry of triumph.
“You have it?” asked the countess.
“Yes--at last!”
“Where is he?”
“In the Fortress of Saints Peter and Paul! In St. Petersburg!”
He swiftly put back the files. Perhaps he had already remained too long.
“Countess,” he whispered, “I am going to leave the house immediately.”
“I was just going to suggest it,” she returned. “It would be dangerous
for you here. The prince has a violent temper; if he found out he might
stop at nothing. And I shall go with you.”
“Go with me?”
“I have led you into this. Do you think I shall desert you?”
“But countess----”
“Don’t protest. Besides, I can help you.” Her brain had worked as
rapidly as her hands, and she had a plan in readiness. “I had this same
idea for finding out about Borodin before I came here. So I prepared
for my escape. I have bribed one of the servants. He is to have a horse
and sleigh ready at a moment’s notice.”
“No, no, countess. I can’t let you run into this danger!”
“Not when I am the cause of the danger?”
“No, no, I cannot! But I must go.”
He started across the room. She followed him.
“But how will you escape?”
“I’ll say that I’ve been suddenly called away, and ask for a sleigh to
the station,” he said as they entered the library. “I’ll be far away
before they----”
He broke off. The countess gave a counterfeit cry of dismay. Before
them stood the figure of Prince Berloff. The pale mask of cultured
gentlemanliness was down, and all his relentless cruelty glared at
Drexel in a scowl of dark, malignant passion.
“What were you doing in my papers?” his voice grated out.
Perhaps the prince had seen nothing, was merely suspicious. “What
papers?” Drexel asked, with an effort at surprise.
“You cannot pretend innocence! I came in here a minute ago--heard
whispers--looked in and saw you in my private papers.”
Drexel, feeling there remained for him but the slenderest chance, did
not see wherein that chance would be bettered by a mild demeanour.
Besides, the mere sight of the man set his soul afire with wrath and
hatred.
“Well, suppose I was? What then?” he coolly demanded.
“What were you looking for? What did you find out?”
Drexel shrugged his shoulders.
“Speak out! What were you looking for?”
“I do not choose to tell,” returned Drexel calmly.
“You do not choose to tell--eh?” repeated the prince. “I think you do!”
And he drew a pistol and pointed it at Drexel’s breast.
The countess saw that the prince’s rage sprang from his fear--his
ever-present fear--that Drexel had discovered him to be the chief of
the hated secret police. Also, she saw the danger of the prince ruining
her new-made scheme. She threw herself between the two.
“Don’t, don’t, prince!” she cried. “It was all my doing!”
He turned upon her fiercely. “Your doing?”
She put all the double meaning into her words that she dared.
“I led him into it! The blame is all mine! He merely did what I----”
“Stop, countess!” Drexel interposed. He looked at the prince with the
flaming recklessness of a mastering hate. “The blame is not hers,
Prince Berloff. It is all mine. So whatever you do, you must do to me
alone. I might as well tell you, though, in order to save your time,
that I am not in the least afraid of that pistol.”
The prince was silent a moment, during which he held the pistol to
Drexel’s breast and glared into his defiant eyes. “Not afraid? Why?”
“Because you dare not shoot.”
“You think not?”
“I know not.”
Berloff again was silent for a moment. “Why do I not dare shoot?”
“Because you want to marry my cousin.”
“Well?”
“Well, if you were to shoot me down, no matter under what
circumstances, my cousin would never marry you.”
“Do you think the loss of your cousin will hold me back?”
“No, my dear prince. But the loss of my cousin’s millions will.”
The prince did not answer.
As he gazed at the prince, Drexel flamed with the desire to hurl
defiance, contempt, into that gleaming, passion-worked face: to tell
him that he knew him for a man-hunter with the blood of rare-souled
thousands upon his hands, and that he was going to disclose his
perfidious business to his cousin Alice, and proclaim it broadcast to
the world. He was almost overmastered by the impulse, let come what
might, to grapple that false throat and hold it till life was gone.
But there was the promise of silence that he had made to Sonya. His
first consideration had to be her safety, and her safety depended upon
his own. He thought of Captain Nadson; the captain might enter at any
moment, and bring about the undoing of them both. For Sonya’s sake he
must make some desperate effort to escape.
He sought to get out of the room by virtue of mere audacity. “And so,
prince, since you are afraid to use that weapon, you will have to think
of something else,” he said. “And that you may think the better, I
shall leave you to yourself.”
He pushed the pistol to one side and stepped toward the door.
The fear that his secret was out dominated the prince. “Stop, or I
shoot!” he cried.
At the same instant, drawing nearer in the corridor, sounded the deep
voice of Captain Nadson.